About 500 boats will sail at noon today in the 43rd race from Newport Beach to Ensenada, Mexico. This year's race drew 524 entries, down by about a dozen from last year, but usually not all start. The start off the Newport jetty is one of yachting's spectacles. Boats in the huge fleet maneuver for their respective starts, beginning at noon and continuing at 10-minute intervals until about 1:30.

The more than 400 sleek and shining sailboats that will unfurl their brightly colored sails here today may look like an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." But in this sailing competition, the 47th annual Newport-Ensenada race beginning at noon, Joe Six-Pack can race alongside millionaire yachtsmen such as Dennis Conner and Roy Disney. At least for a little while.

When the Newport Beach-Ensenada International Yacht Race gets under way today, yachtsmen in modern vessels will start tinkering with high-tech depth gauges, fancy wind-indicator instruments and state-of-the-art digital compasses. But in the 78-year-old wooden sloop Virginia, the four-man crew will be getting down to old-fashioned seafaring basics. "We just point her south and let her go," said her skipper, Daniel Heagney, 46, of Dana Point.

For the three crew members of the Out Patient, today's 49th annual Newport Beach-to-Ensenada sailboat race means more than just a competition. It symbolizes their independence. "There's a certain gratification to harness the powers of nature," said Duncan Milne, 49, skipper of the 30-foot boat, which the crew sailed from Long Beach to Newport Beach on Thursday. The trio--Milne, Bob Case and Tammie Latterell--have much in common.

It was a good idea, Lanee Butler thought. She would jump on her sailboard and join the 47th Newport-Ensenada International Yacht Race to promote her Olympic campaign. A noble idea. She would donate some of the proceeds to the Surfrider Foundation for cleaner oceans. If Lanee had known then what she knows now. . . . "It wasn't what I expected," she said. "I expected--gosh, I don't know. It was much harder than I'd ever dreamed of, and not only for me but for the guys in my support boat."

Behold the Whisper, a 30-foot yacht that once placed third in one of the biggest races around. It may be dirty and unpolished. But, says the skipper with a bone-white beard, ride in it, feel it underfoot as it cuts through the water. Behold this boat, he says, because it can win. Al Berg, 77, who has won 15 trophies in the 20 years he has sailed the Newport-to-Ensenada race, gave his vessel the name "because it's whisper-quiet." It sneaks up quietly on the big boats in the big races.

Sometime today, Jack Baillie expects to sail his 65-foot yacht, Newsboy, into Ensenada Harbor with a familiar thought on his mind. Never again. When it comes to the annual Newport-to-Ensenada boat race, which began Friday, Baillie, 81, has reason to feel a bit burned out. This is the 43rd time he has sailed in the event, which is in its 45th year. "I have decided I'd never do it again for the last five years," Baillie, a Corona del Mar resident, says. "I guess I'll keep going."

On board their 30-foot sloop Friday morning, Brian Rorering and his wife, Karen Greengard, had packed most essentials for this, their maiden voyage in the Newport-Ensenada International Yacht Race. Not much room, of course, for anything but the basics: safety gear, foul-weather garments, Chips Ahoy cookies, cocoa, canned chocolate pudding and almost every brand of potato chip available. At noon, the couple and four friends joined America's Cup skipper Dennis Conner and about 4,000 other sailors as they glided out of Newport Harbor in a dazzling flock that filled the ocean horizon for miles.

Good news for more than 400 skippers planning to start the 51st Newport-to-Ensenada international sailing race today: The weather looks lousy. That was the gloomy forecast that brought smiles to the faces of racers and organizers, because it meant strong winds that would sweep the fleet the 125 nautical miles down to Baja California in potentially record times--or at least fast enough to allow more party time than usual. "It looks very promising," race chairman Jerry Shandera said.

The engines are turned off and there's not a sound, save the water lapping at the hull. The sails are unfurled, and suddenly, the boat surges. It's the briny sea breeze and the wind in his face. It's a sense of power that Vic Stern said transcends mere words. And he keeps coming back for more. At 80, Stern plans to compete today in his 42nd consecutive Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race. He's sailing the same boat this year, the Imi Loa, as he did in 1963.